For a while now I have held my tongue with respect to the People’s Partnership Policies. I think it is only fair to wait and see how persons given new authority and position manage once they have had time to settle in. Ideally I think any new leader should spend one year just listening and or reacting, before they make sweeping changes. It gives them some time to understand the process and procedures of their organization as well as engendering trust in subordinates.
As it goes for the new government’s new short terms policies, two in particular have annoyed me from a policy perspective – the Pension restructuring and the Laptops for 1st Formers. I will leave the pensions issue until I have the empirical evidence to show it is flawed. Oh! I already have the theory I just trying to be polite.
Tonight however I will BASH the laptop thing.
During the 10pm news there was a report on the American Embassy’s charitable donation to the Success Laventille High School. The school has had to deal with a severe burglary problem and after having 56 computers in the school’s lab the number was reduced by illegal means to 10. So the wonderful Americans decided to donate 2 laptops and 7 desktops.
Hmmm. Where do I begin with this? Doesn’t this point to very real problems with the laptop scheme.
Perspective One. I think it is easier to steal a laptop from 1st former than it is to steal 46 desktops from a school. I have heard that there will be built in security features but considering the state of the police service what assurances do students have that they will be secure if someone tries to take their laptop. If they are stealing computers, are 12 year old students in any school safe walking around with a laptop?
Perspective Two. Success Laventille is an example of a school that does not have basic information technology (at present) for all its students but now only one cohort will have access to this technology. All students need to become tech savvy. Another more promising way of doing this could be to work with the school to upgrade the technologies used, not just in computer lab but also in the classroom. There is the potential to actually create jobs within the education and security sectors by upgrading how we teach and share education in a school setting. Schools with networked monitors and proper CC tv systems that can monitor students and illegal visitors could and should be the future. Now I know this is not fool proof but I can not believe that the policymakers agreed to and funded such a short sighted venture. I listened to part of Aunty Kamla’s presentation at the UN and she boasted that in five years all secondary students will have laptops. And all of this is going on while the young men and women can’t every get there teaching qualifications verified. Here’s another question, in 5 years will all students still have laptops? I can understand that this government, in its first moves are ‘reacting’. I mean they have a lot to prove but reactive patronage makes them look like PNM more than they would like.
As I said before there are lots of little things that are gripping me about this government but it’s early. While PNM had their serious problems they followed a vision. I didn’t like the vision but there was a vision. I hope to see a vision from the People Partnership and if I see them repurpose the PNM’s own, I will be on them like white on rice. It’s been four months and I will be waiting to see them step up and act like the government they were given the opportunity to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment